# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 03 16_S118
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

118

Sacraments, we shall not drive them away from us elsewhere, nor turn them off. For the brotherly bond and the law of nature require that in this case we do unto them what we ourselves would gladly have done to us, if we were in their place." — (Ib. p. 439.)

Herr Pastor Winkler will, to be sure, in the first place not concede that he has made himself guilty of "tyrannical conduct," "burdened the consciences and ensnared them with false doctrine and human ordinance"; but even if we are willing to believe in charity that Herr Past. W. is not conscious of such guilt, and that in everything he has acted only according to the doctrine which he mistakenly holds to be right: his guilt has nevertheless been irrefutably proved by documents by Professor Krämer, against which his passionate outbursts prove nothing but the awakening sense of guilt.

Herr Past. W. will say further: Suppose I were guilty to some degree, the conduct of those who have forsaken me and whom you have received nevertheless proves that they are impenitent people. To this we answer, first: it is not true that all have become manifest as impenitent people; on the contrary, many of those who have forsaken Herr Past. W. have shown themselves upright Christians, whose godly walk bears loud-speaking witness against Herr Past. W.'s anathemas, and we wish from our hearts that Herr Past. W. would desist from proclaiming all who have separated from him to be enemies of God and of His Church, lest at the last day God Himself must bear witness for those reviled by him and against him.

Finally, however, we gladly and willingly admit to him that some whom we received, because they pretended to be burdened in their conscience, afterwards became manifest as impure people with unbroken hearts, who wanted to make the dear freedom in Christ a cloak of wickedness. But this proves as little against the correctness of our doctrine and practice as it once proved against the correctness of the doctrine and practice of Luther that the greatest number of those who left the Pope and the Roman priests, accepted and praised the Lutheran doctrine of evangelical freedom and were received into the Lutheran congregations, now lived worse under the Gospel than under the compulsion and dominion of the Pope and the priests.

Of this Luther himself writes, among other things, the following:

"Now we are free, not only from the heavy burden of the law of Moses, but also from the Pope's exactions. But how God and His Gospel are thanked for this freedom, one sees daily in peasants, burghers, nobles, etc., for now no one willingly gives a penny any more to the Gospel and the ministry; yea, everybody rather steals and robs the poor Church of what was given of old. The peasants in the villages complain when they are to make a fence for their pastor; yea, they would even force him to tend the cows and swine, like the other peasants. In the Old Testament and law of Moses the Jews were compelled to be obedient to their priests; just as under the Papacy also no one dared to murmur against monks or priests; but now under the Gospel everyone wants to do what he pleases, and the pastors and preachers are not only despised, but also otherwise ill treated... Now the common man is free, not only of the burden of the wax candles, but also of all the compulsion in which they were fixed under the Papacy, and enjoy the light of the Gospel without any burden, wholly for nothing. They should thank God for that: but they become insolent and wild, and will do nothing good." (Hauspostille. See Luthers Werke, Hall. Ausg. Tom. XIII, 2536.)

It would be an easy thing for us to regale Herr Pastor Winkler with similar phrases such as he uses of us; but we think that these are weapons which do not adorn nor befit a warrior of Christ, and which commend his cause only to those who take him for the vanquished over whom the most abusive speeches have been poured out. If Herr Past. W., moreover, wishes still further to furnish ballad-singers with material to say and to sing of us, we leave him this joy and honor most heartily. Meanwhile we will quietly give testimony to the truth. Let ever so many, even of those who formerly confessed the truth with us, cry, Crucify! Crucify!: neither we nor the truth can lose anything thereby. By God's grace we shall abide by the truth we have recognized, and the truth — will make its own way; it must conquer. "For judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it." Ps. 94, 15.

Herrn Pastor Grabau's

essay: "Against the Missourian Doctrine of the Holy Ministry," the beginning of which is to be found in the 10th number of the "Informatorium," shall, as soon as it is concluded, be examined in the "Lutheraner," the errors and distortions (or misunderstandings?) occurring in it shown, and the pure doctrine of our Church, that is, of the divine Word, concerning the holy ministry set forth. Since the confession of the truth has already drawn so much hatred upon us here, according to the old proverb: "Veritas odium parit," it is certainly an easy thing for Herr Pastor Grabau, by an odious representation of the doctrine confessed by us, to win friends for himself and to increase the hatred which we must bear. But it shall be shown to the dear man that all the mockery and scorn which he ventures to heap upon us in the sight of the Lutheran Church for the sake of our confession actually strikes our dear father Luther and a whole cloud of faithful Lutheran witnesses of the truth, who already rest from the conflict in their graves, and whom we follow, according to the command of the Holy Spirit, who says: "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." Heb. 13, 7.

Mission Report.

Bethany, 29 December 1851.

To the honorable Mission Commission of the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, etc.

Honored brethren, beloved in the Lord!

The near close of the year reminds me of my duty to report to you on the state of the mission at Bethany. And as I prepare to discharge this duty, I cannot but first praise the grace of our God, which has been so visibly with us hitherto and has kept the little congregation together, in spite of the many successive storms and assaults of Satan. In the past year there were times when I thought that scarcely a single soul could escape the snare of the fowler; and yet the power of darkness has always had to be broken again on the Word of God, which abideth for ever.

The old heathen, with few exceptions, still go on in their accustomed way, and they are kept from us by such wretched stories, in order to seduce them at an opportunity to Methodism, that I am ashamed to repeat them. God will indeed set measure and bound also to these enemies of His Word, when His hour comes. Moreover, most of the men, upon my often repeated advice, have now begun to build themselves log houses. Six are already raised, two are finished, and three are to be raised shortly. I hope that they will soon grow fond of these more comfortable dwellings, and then will no longer roam about so much, which will in any case be made more and more difficult for them by the Yankees now settling here, who have already bought up the land all around and have also made preparations for the building of a sawmill. A settled life of the Indians, however, we must by all means strive with all diligence to bring about; for perpetual roaming about may indeed be favorable in a certain respect to camp-meeting Methodism, but not to Lutheran Christianity.

The older pupils have gradually left the school, on account of hunting, etc.; a new little band is only beginning gradually to gather; so that in summer I often had only two or three, in autumn and lately again eight to ten pupils. Of my first pupils several have learned to read fairly well; but since in intercourse with their own people they more and more lose the English lan-